Carried in Prophetic Expositor issue of October-November 2000:

From the Yorkshire Post, England, August 25, 2000: Egyptian theory on ancient Humber boats - by Mike Waites

ANCIENT Egyptians swapped the Nile for the Humber in one of the earliest trade missions to our shores, according to a new book.
- Egyptologist Lorraine Evans claims in Kingdom of the Ark, that evidence from the discovery of three boats on the shores of the Humber shows Egyptians were shipwrecked near Hull about 3,500 years ago. She speculates they had forsaken the ancient wonders of Egypt for a trade journey to Britain, but had come to grief in a storm within swimming distance of the shore, sparking the intriguing possibility they may have made their way to land and could have settled in the area, leaving some inhabitants of the East Riding with Ancient Egyptian roots.
- Her theory, also drawing on finds from other parts of the country, suggests Ancient Egyptian culture could have had a significant impact on early British life, claiming a princess who was Tutankhamun's half-sister set up a colony in Ireland. Ms. Evans says her findings could prompt a revolution in traditional views about the British and their origins, although her views have been met by scepticism from scholars in the field who believe her claims are based on scanty evidence and that the Egyptians had neither the technology nor the desire to travel to Britain.
- Three wooden boats were discovered by archaeologists in mud on the banks of the Humber at North Ferriby in 1937 and were at first mistaken for Viking longships, but it was not until they were radiocarbon dated that it was firmly established they were Bronze Age craft dating from 700-400 BC.
- Fragments from the boats - regarded as some of the most significant discoveries of their kind ever in Europe - are now on display at the Hull and East Riding Museum and at the Maritime Museum in Hull, and show some of the earliest examples of seagoing vessels capable of international travel.
- In her book, Ms Evans claims the North Ferriby boats were of the same design to those which once travelled up and down the Nile, matching one found near the Great Pyramid - dubbed the First Wonder of the World by the Greeks - but until now the link had never been examined by an Egyptologist.
- She said: "The boats are around 16 metres long and match precisely the design of a contemporary Egyptian seagoing vessel discovered intact near the pyramids of Giza."
- "The importance of such findings cannot be underestimated. Every aspect of our rich cultural heritage would now have to be altered to include the peoples of Egypt."
- "Every traditional text recounting the history of the British Isles would have to be rewritten. The simple fact that many peoples of Britain are going about their daily business unaware of their Egyptian heritage is astounding in itself."
- She claims other evidence from Ireland shows jewellery of east Mediterranean origin has been found in burial mounds while folklore persists that an Egyptian princess - said to be Princess Scota the half-sister of Tutankhamun - settled in a valley on the emerald isle.
- Further clues she says show some Welsh words have the same pronunciation and meaning as those used long ago in Egypt while DNA evidence shows strong similarities between North Africans and the Welsh.

[The caption under a picture which accompanies the article explains: "Link with the past; Martin Freeman, Assistant Keeper of Archaeology at the Hull and East Riding Museum, with a model of one of the Bronze Age boats found at North Ferriby on the banks of the River Humber."]

The following two items had to be omitted from the September and the October-November Prophetic Expositors respectively, for lack of space. The second was dropped at the last minute to make way for the above report, but, for the record, we will include them both at this point, for the information of those visiting our Web Page:

#1- NOT USED in the September issue of The Prophetic Expositor. This was an item which should have followed some related items:

"In another context, we noted divergent views in the following report: From The Toronto Globe and Mail of July 10, 2000: Pope condemns gay-pride festival. Associated Press, Vatican City - The Pope bitterly denounced a gay-pride festival in Rome as an offence to Christian values yesterday and said that homosexual acts are 'contrary to natural law... .'"

#2 - NOT USED in the October-November issue of The Prophetic Expositor:

4. Princess Andrew of Russia, aged 92, was the British-born second wife of the eldest nephew of Tsar Nicholas II. Born Nadine Sylvia Ada McDougall on June 5, 1908, at Lynsted, Kent, the eldest of three daughters. Her father, Lt-Col Herbert McDougall, ... fought in the Boer War. Through her mother, Nadine was a descendant of William Paterson, who founded the Bank of England in 1694. ... Prince Andrew was born in St Petersburg in 1897 ... His first wife Elisaveta, by whom he had three children, was killed at Hampton Court during an air raid in 1940. Nadine and the Prince were married (...in two ceremonies..., one by Dr. William Temple, the other by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in exile... ). She was artistic, musical, a natural orator, a great storyteller and a generous hostess. COMMENT: Her interesting life fills 12 column inches in this illustrated obituary.

From The Weekly Telegraph No. 467 of July 5 - 11, 2000: Aeronautical hero that time forgot - By Kevin Myers writes regarding a biography by Anthony Furse - Wilfrid Freeman: The genius behind allied survival and air supremacy, 1939 to 1945 "The 69th anniversary of the Battle of Britain is upon us...But it is unlikely that much thought will be given to the one man whose aeronautical decisions and organisational brilliance made possible the defence of Britain in 1940 and the Allied victory in the west five years later: Wilfrid Freeman... ."

From The Toronto Globe and Mail of June 26, 2000, (from National Review): Liberal U.S. professors -
- In a survey by the American Council on education and the American Association of University Professors, 7 per cent of college faculty members said they were conservative and 63 per cent labelled themselves liberal or "far left."

From The Weekly Telegraph No. 471, of August 2-8, 2000:
Obituary notes -
1. Ezequiel Gamonal: Aged 82. Peruvian prophet regarded by tens of thousands of followers as the Messiah. A diminutive, bad-tempered figure who suffered from arthritis, Gamonal was worshipped by his sect, the Israelites of the New Universal Covenant. Its members were mainly Andean peasants who wore Old Testament costumes modelled on Cecil B DeMille's Hollywood epics.

2. The O'Conor Don: In Dublin, aged 88. Head of native Irish family of great antiquity descended from the pre-Norman Kings of Connaght and last High Kings of Ireland. Succeeded as O'Conor Don on death in 1981 of second cousin, Father Charles O'Conor, the former provincial of the Jesuit Order in Ireland.

3. Maj Sir Drummond Dunbar of Durn, 9th Bt: Aged 83. Won MC after seizing vital bridge at Wadi Akarit, Tunisia, in 1943. Family is descended from John, 1st Earl of Moray, who in 14th century married daughter of first Stuart king of Scotland, Robert II, and was himself a descendant of Anglo-Saxon King Ethelred II, "the Unready". Dunbar baronetcy created in 1698.

From The Weekly Telegraph No. 472, August 9-15, 2000: How it went pear-shaped for boy king
- TUTANKHAMUN may have been cursed with a genetic disease that gave him unusually fat hips, according to a new study of the boy kings clothes, writes David Derbyshire.
- Researchers examining garments sealed in Tutankhamun's tomb 3,300 years ago have discovered that the Egyptian Pharaoh had a distinctive and unflattering pear shape.
- The same wide hips are found in statues and pictures of his father, King Akhenaton, leading some Egyptologists to suggest that the family suffered from the genetic condition Marfan's syndrome.
- Sufferers are unusually tall and thin and have long fingers and large hips.
- A team of Dutch and British researchers measured the garments, which include 150 loincloths, to come up with the Pharaoh's vital statistics - a 31 in chest, 29 in waist and 43 in hips.

From The Weekly Telegraph No. 471, of August 2-8, 2000: Auberon Waugh has some noteworthy items to convey. "Tony Blair won the acclaim of world leaders at the G8 conference by calling for a new international war on the $400 billion industry in illegal drugs. It now represents eight per cent of world trade, we are told... ." Explaining the high cost as due to governments making the trade illegal, he continues "The world's leaders are very happy to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on this war against drugs, taking on tens of thousands of extra employees, giving themselves increased powers of every sort and turning more and more of human society into an extension of the state, under their control... ." Something to think about!

From The Weekly Telegraph No. 473, August 16-22, 2000: Dig finds Roman prison camp at Hadrian's Wall - by David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent ARCHAEOLOGISTS have unearthed evidence that the Romans built a vast prisoner-of-war camp, perhaps Britain's first, for unruly Scots in the shadow of Hadrian's Wall.

Excavations at the Vindolanda fort near Hexham, Northumberland, sugggest that it held up to 2,000 prisoners during the third century, a time when imperial forces arrived in Britain to quell an uprising north of the border.
- Vinolanda, one of the northernmost forts of the Roman empire, was an important military stronghold during the entire occupation and held 1,000 soldiers.
- Remains of 13 primitive stone huts have been dug up, each about 6ft in diameter and arranged back-to-back in rows of five, with doorways leading into narrow streets.
- Their layout suggests there could have been up to 300 huts within the fort.
- Patricia Birley, deputy director of the Vindolanda Trust, says the huts were built in the style of local homes. They were too small and too basic for Roman soldiers and too close to each other to be used for livestock.
- The huts may have been used as temporary refuge for farmers during uprisings, but it is more likely that they were used to house hostages.
- "There are no other circular structures of this kind associated with a fort, which is what makes it so strange." she said.
- Roman soldiers lived in barrack blocks which followed a pattern of long rectangular buildings with facilities for cooking. They would not have tolerated conditions in the huts, she said.
- "It is possible that they were for hostages, although they could have been used for people who were friendly to the occupation but who were under threat and so might have had temporary shelter," she added.
- She believes that the huts might be linked to the uprising near Edinburgh between 209 and 211 when the Emperor Septimus Severus and an imperial army arrived in Britain.
- There are records of hostages taken during the fighting being sent to Rome as exhibits. But some might have been sent to Vindolanda.
- Many of the huts had hearths but were stripped bare long ago, which removed any clues about their use.
- The fort was created in AD 90, not long after the Roman occupation, and Hadrian's wall was built between AD 122 and 128 a mile to the north. The fort was occupied until the Romans withdrew.
- The Vindolanda team has also discovered a second bathhouse at the site this summer, which dated from the end of the first century, according to the magazine British Archaeology.

From The 27th Annual Report of the Ontario Press Council, 1999, just received, we picked out a small item concerning the name of Solomon J. Mattar, a Christian, who was Keeper of The Garden Tomb, Jerusalem, and who was shot by Israeli soldiers who thought they had come upon a pocket of resistance on 6 June, 1967, during the battle for Jerusalem between Israeli and Jordanian troops. During the battle, according to an account, Mattar was walking from the tomb to his house for refreshments when he was shot. Poignancy was lent to the item when your Editor recalled that his mother used to receive cards from him, decorated with real flower petals glued in pictorial representations of those which grew in the Garden. The years have flown, yet memory lingers.